Download Citation

Abstract

In Vargas Llosa: La Batalla En Las Ideas, Wilfrido H. Corral aims to define the type of public intellectual Mario Vargas Llosa embodied, and in the process reclaim Vargas Llosa for Latin Americans. While cognizant of the global inspirations and corollary international admiration that largely made Vargas Llosa the public figure he is today, Corral is focused on assessing the writer’s message, method and historical significance as a global public intellectual within a Latin American context that is defined as much globally as it is regionally. Couched in response to Edward Said’s postulations regarding intellectuals and power in The Word, The Text, and The Critic (1983), Corral argues that Vargas Llosa’s greatest contribution lies in insisting that no one who claims to own the truth does so.